DELRAY WATER PLANT NEAR CAPACITY

DELRAY BEACH -- City officials who have watched water use rise dramatically during the past two weeks are urging conservation by residents because the city's water treatment plant has little capacity to spare.

"The hot, dry weather has really been increasing the use of the system," conservation coordinator Nancy Davila said on Friday. "The figures are still getting pretty high. ... We don't have a shortage of raw water to treat. We have a shortage of processed water available."

Water use figures reached 16.7 million gallons on Tuesday and Wednesday, before cool weather on Thursday dropped the amount to 14.6 million gallons. The figures had been at or above 16 million gallons the previous 10 days.

In November, city officials lifted mandatory water restrictions that were put in place because of the contamination of the city's western water supply. The construction of four air-stripper towers to clean that water allowed the city to end restrictions.

However, businesses and residents should realize that there are at least six to eight weeks more of dry weather expected, Davila said.

The question is the amount of water the treatment plant can process.

Johnson said he is not sure of the plant's absolute limit, but he said the city is moving closer to it. The plant is permitted to pump 22 million gallons a day, but it is not equipped to reach that number, he said.

Also, the plant cannot afford to have part of the pumping system break down at the current pumping levels, Johnson said.

That happened on Wednesday, when a the city's new air strippers had to be shut down for two hours while workers isolated a broken valve. The western well field was out of commission during repairs.

"While we were doing that, we were running full bore -- every other well in the city was running," Johnson said.

Officials in Lake Worth and West Palm Beach said they also recommend water conservation but said they were not in danger of exceeding treatment capacities at this time.